


Throw Yourself at the Ground

by still_lycoris



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Flying, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: The Master has a problem and he wants the Doctor to fix it. The Doctor would rather mock but it leads to something else ...
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	Throw Yourself at the Ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheseusInTheMaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/gifts).



When the alarm goes off, the Doctor fully intends to ignore it. Fully. Who cares if the Master is in trouble? Not her. She doesn’t care at all. Lots of things to do. Planets to see, the fam to entertain, people to meet. New people. Not him. Never mind him. She hopes whatever is happening to him is terminal. Or at least very, very unpleasant. But whatever it is, it’s nothing to do with her. He doesn’t deserve her.

Except somehow, one night when it is just her, she ends up following the alarm signal anyway. Which takes her to a rather strange planet, which contains a dark cave where the Master is hiding. Hiding because the rather strange planet is populated by people with wings and people _without_ wings are an anathema. So when the Master showed up, they “fixed” him the only way they knew how.

The wings are big with white, fluffy feathers, just like an angel from Earth’s would be. Big enough to fly – if the Master wanted to. Which he clearly does not right now.

“Get them _off_.”

“Now, let’s not be hasty,” the Doctor says happily. “We wouldn’t want to do anything too quickly, would we? Might end up accidentally cutting into your spine or something. Then you’d never walk again and you’d probably wish you had the wings back, wouldn’t you?”

The Master makes a brilliant grinding noise in his throat. The Doctor supposes she shouldn’t torment him. The Master tormented is very slightly more dangerous than the Master in a good mood – though only very slightly.

And right now he does know that he needs her help, which won’t be improving his mood at all. It’s improving _her_ mood though. She’s rather glad that she came here now. Seeing the Master angry and a little bit helpless is soothing. Maybe it shouldn’t be but it is. It’s okay. She doesn’t have to tell anybody that that’s how it feels. That watching him rage is making her feel better than she has in a while.

He is standing in front of her with no top on – not top would fit him, of course. She looks again at the wings. They look utterly organic, as though they are naturally part of his body and have always been there – even though that’s quite impossible. The wing bones jut from both sides of his spine, smooth and round and covered in a velvety substance. She strokes it with one finger and the wing twitches.

“Don’t _grope_ them. Just get _rid_ of them!”

“You’re very touchy,” the Doctor says, her voice ever so bright. “You know, I probably can’t do this alone. I’d better get back to Earth, get a few friends who know more official medicine to help out. I bet everybody would enjoy seeing – ”

The Master twists round in one smooth motion and grabs her by the throat, slamming her against the side of the TARDIS. His wings spread out behind him and the Doctor can’t help thinking that they really are majestic. She should probably cooperate. The last thing that the Master needs is something that might make him more impressive to innocent people who don’t realise what he is. What he is capable of.

She stays still under his hand. He squeezes viciously but not so tightly that it might endanger her life. His breath his hot on her face. She hates that she rather likes it.

“ _Nobody_ ,” the Master says and his voice is a snarl. “ _Nobody_ is going to see this except _you_ and _you_ are going to get rid of them or I will _kill_ you.”

“You’re usually planning to kill me anyway,” the Doctor couldn’t stop herself saying. “Not really much change, is it?”

He smiles now; that weirdly brilliant and completely mad smile that lights up his whole face. He leans in even closer to her, their noses practically touching. His new wings fold in a little, forming a claustrophobic cocoon around them. 

“All right, Doctor. I won’t kill you. I’ll think of something worse. You know I can. You know I can make your life so awful, your precious little _fam’s_ life so horrifying that it wouldn’t even be worth living. And I’ll enjoy it because I _love_ causing the most horrible chaos imaginable.”

He’s laughing as he speaks, little breathless laughs but he’s shaking too. His other hand comes up and strokes her face, a parody of affection – or perhaps actual affection. With him, violence and affection have gone together for so long that it’s hard to tell any longer. And this regeneration seems to be worse. 

“You going to let go now?” she asks, her voice cool, as though this isn’t frightening or confusing or anything else at all. “Or are we just going to stand here until one of us dies of boredom?”

“Oh, I’d never let you die of that and you know it,” he says and the smile has become a little more real, as though they’re friends again. Not for the first time – and she’s sure, not for the last – she wishes that things were different. That he were her friend, that they were the true companions that she once believed that they would always be.

“You know, you’re right,” he says. “Quite right. I haven’t really tried them, have I? It seems a waste if you have wings not to fly.”

She realises what he’s going to do just before he does it and does the only thing she can – grabs his shoulders to steady herself because there’s no getting away, not now and she’d rather look casual than scared. He lets go of her throat to grab her around the waist. Then the wings flag once, twice and then he leaps into the air and the Doctor is hurtling upwards with him.

“How high do you think I can get?!” the Master screams in her ear. She doesn’t answer. Any answer will be encouragement to mania. She keeps her hands tightly gripped and loops her legs around his waist, knowing that he will try to drop her at some point, he can’t not. Even though he needs her, he’s liable to forget it in the moment of euphoria at the idea.

The view is beautiful though. It’s a lovely place, this planet. The Master has found the most isolated part of it possible but she can see a very distant swirl of flying beings that she supposes must be some of the population of the planet. Everything is very small and far away and they are still going up, through the chilly mist of clouds, closer to the stars she always longs to see and he always longs to destroy.

“It’s beautiful,” she says quietly without meaning to. He hears her, despite the wind.

“It’s just dirt. Maybe I’ll come back and burn it.”

She twists to look at him, opening her mouth to yell in his face and he kisses her. And the thing is, it’s genuinely not what she expected him to do, not so high up, not with his great, unfamiliar wings flapping to hold them up and she tells herself that’s why she doesn’t instantly pull her mouth away, because it’s just not what she expected and she’s always quite liked the unexpected. And maybe it’s the adrenaline and surprise that makes her kiss back. Yeah. Maybe it’s that. It doesn’t really matter what it is, honestly. Whatever it is, she kisses him back and it’s frantic and messy and eager in a way that it shouldn’t be but it is.

He gives a little groan and his arms tighten around her waist before he lets go with one hand and thrusts it up her top, hot fingers scrabbling at her bare skin. She could stop this and she knows she should – but she doesn’t. She keeps on kissing him and one of her hands comes up to rake through his hair and she moves her hips a little, arching against him. Even at this awkward angle she can feel how turned on he is already, just from this and that makes her _ache_. He’s still flapping his wings but in a different way now, putting all his energy into keeping them in one spot. They are pressed together so tightly ...

She leaves his mouth and kisses his jaw, his throat. He scratches her back, she pulls his hair and feels his hips jerk and knows that he wants to fuck her more than anything but that he’d probably forget to flap his wings if they did. That if she tried to adjust her clothes for that, she might let go and fall because you’d need absolute trust for aerial acrobatics and they don’t have it, they can never have it and it should put her off, should make her want to stop but instead, she finds herself squirming against him more, biting lightly at his shoulder.

“Say my name,” he gasps against her hair, then against her lips as she lifts her head to look at him. “Say it, say my name, say my name, _say it_ ... ”

“Master,” she breathes against his mouth and he makes a noise that’s closer to a sob than anything and for a horrifying yet insanely exhilarating moment, he forgets and they’re plummeting out of the sky, the wind tearing at them both, ground rushing towards them and he’s kissing her mouth again as though nothing else matters and maybe, just maybe it doesn’t – 

The wings flap, once, twice and they’re suspended again. He pulls his mouth away from hers and stares at her and she stares back. Then abruptly, he dives and the Doctor has to cling on tight and grit her teeth against the feeling of it – and then they’re back on the ground and she stumbles back from him and they are staring at each other as though they’ve no idea what happened even though they both know all too well and the silence stretches between them for a lifetime or two.

The Doctor takes a deep breath and straightens her coat, as though the whole thing was just mildly annoying, nothing else. She tells herself the burning is just from the strength of the wind. The Master folds his arms and thrusts his wings out again.

“Now, let’s stop playing games and get on with this, shall we?” he says, as though he isn’t the one who started it. “You’ll get these out, I’ll leave. Like it never happened.”

She sighs, nods her head. It won’t be easy to remove the wings but she thinks that she can do it. She fully expects him to try and kill her afterwards, though it will probably be token attempt, to show a certain amount of gratitude. Normal for them.

She itches to ask him if it always has to be this way but she bites back the words. She knows the answer he’ll give. She can practically recite the conversation word for word even though they haven’t had it yet. So instead, she steps aside and lets him enter her TARDIS and tries to be amused as she watches him fold his wings around himself to get in. But it’s hollow, somehow.

She should never have followed that alarm.


End file.
